


Doing It Properly

by Fuhadeza



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Nudity, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 15:15:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19008400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fuhadeza/pseuds/Fuhadeza
Summary: Adora checks Catra for ticks.I don't really have an explanation for this.





	Doing It Properly

**Author's Note:**

> me: I'll just write these few hundred words so I'm not distracted when I start my actual work  
> me, many hours later:

‘Check me for _what_?’

‘Ticks. They're these tiny black bugs, and they attach to your skin and drink your blood, and you get them from walking out in the forest, and Glimmer says they carry diseases—’

‘Glimmer says.’

‘Yes!’

‘And have you ever _seen_ one?’

‘ _Yes_ , Catra, that’s why I know about them. They're gross. I'm trying to do you a favour.’

‘Uh-huh. And this involves examining my whole body. Sounds suspicious.’

‘Don’t flatter yourself. I used to do it in the mirror, and I know how hard it is to see your own back like that. _But_ , if you don’t want any help, I'll leave you to it. Just don’t complain to me if you end up covered in blood-sucking parasites.’

‘All right, all right, I get it. You can help. You can’t blame me for being sceptical, though, Glimmer’s had it out for me ever since—well. Ever since.’

Adora grabbed Catra’s hand and rolled up her sleeve. ‘Stand up and turn around. It's easier that way. Do you really think,’ she added once Catra had obeyed, ‘that Glimmer lied to me about ticks, ages ago, _just in case_ you ever ended up in a situation where she could use that against you?’

Adora was running her hands along Catra's arm, the evening chill of her bedroom banished before a sleeve of warmth. It felt nice. Like being stroked. Catra shifted on her feet. ‘That sounds just like her to me.’

‘Don’t flatter yourself.’ Adora moved on to her other arm, leaving a trail of goosebumps behind.

‘You keep saying that. I'm starting to think maybe I _should_ flatter myself.’

‘Please don’t.’

‘Why not? I deserve it sometimes, these days.’ Even if Adora hadn’t been touching her, Catra would have known the instant she went still. It was apparent in the intersection of their shadows on the carpet, no longer disturbed by movement; in the way her ears, attuned by years of picking out Adora’s footsteps in the rush of Horde cadets, no longer heard a thing. ‘Adora?’

‘They particularly like hiding in armpits,’ Adora said in a tone of voice that, surely, no one had ever used to talk about ticks before.

‘That’s _not_ what you were thinking.’

Adora took a half-step back. Her hands fell to her sides. ‘Your shirt is too thick,’ she went on. ‘I can’t roll the sleeves up high enough.’

It was like talking in a code they were inventing on the spot and no guarantee the other had the same key. Adora’s fingers burned their absence back down her arm, from her shoulder to her elbow, and up to the slender curve of her wrist. Phantom digits interlaced with hers. Catra could almost feel the slight pressure of the squeeze, reassuring precisely because those fingers could, but did not, clamp down harder.

She pulled her shirt off before her mind had time to receive some other message, decoded according to some other protocol.

She wore nothing underneath.

‘Catra?’ It wasn’t alarm in Adora’s voice, she thought, only curiosity. ‘What are you doing?’

‘If you’re going to do this, do it properly.’

Catra stood and waited, the bare skin of her back and her chest stippling before the imagined breeze of Adora’s touch. This was possible only in the dark, Adora unseen behind her, such things as anxiety and embarrassment banished, just this once, to the light of day. In the dark it was easy. Comfortable.

Adora’s hands settled on her shoulders. Catra closed her eyes as they slid down her arms again, covering her hands, fingertips testing the sharpness of her claws. ‘You did my arms already.’

‘Hush.’ Adora’s voice so close to her ear made her tail twitch, feeling out the distance between them. When had it shrunk so much? ‘I’m doing it properly,’ she added. ‘Just like you wanted. Raise your arms.’

Several clichés presented themselves to Catra. But Adora’s hands weren’t soft, not really, nor was the curl of hair beneath her arms an inherently _intimate_ place to be touched. More than anything it was unusual. But Adora’s touch was firm where it might have been ticklish, gentle where it might have been too rough, and Catra soon discovered that _unusual_ was a mask that intimacy wore.

Adora paused, hands resting on Catra’s sides. ‘Can I touch your back?’

Catra knew why she was asking, but her scars had never been less relevant. ‘Yes, please.’

Adora’s laugh tickled her cheek. ‘Enjoying yourself?’

‘Hardly. Just looking out for my health.’

The next thing she knew Adora’s hands were in her hair, rubbing behind her ears, and Catra couldn’t help the noise of pure contentment she made, nor the soft rumble of the purr it settled into.

‘Just your health,’ Adora said. ‘Obviously.’

‘You cheated. That’s not my back.’

‘Who said it was a competition?’ Adora pressed a kiss to the tip of her ear. ‘And if it is,’ she added in a whisper, ‘why would I cheat when I’m winning?’

‘You’re not winning.’

‘Really?’ Adora was rubbing circles into her shoulders now, her neck, down her spine, and Catra had to fight to prevent her back from arching. ‘Hold still.’ Adora’s hands swept up again, leaving Catra’s skin tingling in their wake. ‘Does that feel good?’

‘Yes,’ Catra said, but she’d caught the slight hesitation in Adora’s voice, knew its cause. When she’d been younger, Catra had kept a catalogue of her scars. Each had burned as brightly in her mind as it once had on her body, inscribed with the details of who, where, how. Each had _meant_ something. She’d sworn revenge on those scars.

Time had ground on. She’d carried those memories through her dreams, thought herself helpless before them, but even they had faded, until the only thing that remained was an awareness of the whole. They were her scars still, but the only story they told was a complete story, a chapter in her life she’d read, understood, and closed. There was no venom left to enrage her against the figures of her past.

Adora remembered. Catra could tell by the way her fingers lingered. ‘You’re doing it again. Holding yourself to an impossible standard. I forgave you a long time ago.’

‘I know. So did I.’

Too many apologies had passed between them over the years for them to be necessary anymore. It was enough simply to remind each other. ‘Yes,’ Catra repeated. ‘It feels good.’

When Adora did not reply, Catra thought perhaps that was it, perhaps the moment had been derailed, and that wouldn’t be so bad. It had been nice, but that wouldn’t be so bad.

Adora said, ‘Good,’ and wrapped her arms around Catra’s stomach.

The relief was so powerful Catra nearly gasped out loud. Her hands found Adora’s, drew them up, encouraged them to touch her further, higher—

‘If I’m not winning,’ Adora said, the words muffled by Catra’s hair, ‘why are you naked in my arms?’

‘Half-naked.’ There was a line here they had never crossed, embodied in the thin space separating Adora’s fingers from Catra’s breasts. ‘And I’m only here because you insisted.’

‘If you say so,’ Adora said. Her fingers moved a fraction of an inch closer.

In lieu of a reply, Catra cupped her own breasts and raised them.

Adora laughed even as her fingers ghosted over the warm skin beneath. ‘I get it,’ she murmured. ‘We’re doing it properly.’ A pause. ‘I can feel your heartbeat.’

Catra could feel it, too, two-fold, as if Adora’s hand over her heart was reflecting her pulse back at her. She could feel it speed up as Adora’s other hand slid down to the hem of her trousers.

‘Here, too?’

Catra’s mouth was dry. She let her hands fall away from her chest and guided Adora to her belt-buckle.

‘Okay. Whatever you want.’

It should have felt wrong being stripped completely naked. Even as Adora dropped to her knees behind her, even as Catra stepped out of her discarded underthings, she felt nothing but a quiet comfort. It ought to have felt wrong when Adora smoothed the tops of her feet, circled her ankles, slid her hands up Catra’s legs. She shouldn’t have been so calm, shouldn’t have moved her feet further apart so Adora could access her inner thighs, trace the sensitive lines where they met her pelvis. She should have felt embarrassed when Adora stood up again, her hands never leaving Catra’s skin.

But Adora was many things to her that no one else was. None of Catra’s preconceptions of what ought to be bore weight when it was Adora touching her.

‘One more spot,’ Adora said, and Catra couldn’t control the twitch when Adora’s hand closed around the base of her tail. ‘Hold still, kittycat,’ she added, giving Catra’s tail a gentle tug.

That was when Catra stopped pretending. She barely noticed as Adora examined the length of her tail, because she couldn’t deny any longer that she wanted to hear Adora call her _kittycat_ again, that she wanted to be stroked and cared for every night, not just this night.

The view from the other side of the line took her breath away.

‘There,’ Adora said, heedless of her partner’s epiphany. ‘All clear.’

That was when Adora could have stepped back and let Catra dress herself. She could have averted her gaze and never mind that she’d just explored every inch of Catra’s body. She could have gone on pretending.

Instead she pressed herself against Catra’s back and held her. Catra didn’t dare move, didn’t dare say anything lest the moment snapped, but she couldn’t control the purr that rose within her again, and she couldn’t control the sigh that escaped her when Adora smiled into her neck and kissed the line of her jaw.

‘I don’t think I realised,’ Adora said presently, ‘how much I wanted to touch you like that.’

Catra forced her voice to work again. ‘Yeah?’

‘You’re beautiful,’ Adora went on, and Catra didn’t know if that was meant to be an answer or a fresh thought. ‘And you’re brave. And you’ve always been the most important person in my life. And I don’t understand why I didn’t tell you that, every single day of your life.’

Catra bowed her head to hide the blush Adora couldn’t possibly see. ‘Flatterer.’

‘That’s right. You don’t have to flatter yourself. I’ll do it for you.’

She’d never been good at this part. Catra thrived on the teasing, the competitions, the taunting words that lay on top of her feelings. It was dizzying, sometimes, to be reminded of what lay beneath.

Important, too, to reaffirm it. ‘Thank you.’ Catra spun, impulsive, in Adora’s embrace, heedless of her own nudity. She needn’t have worried. Adora’s eyes were fixed firmly on hers. ‘I don’t—’ She swallowed the rest of that sentence. ‘I do deserve you. And you deserve me.’ Catra’s ears flattened. The blush spread to her neck. All the while, Adora smiled at her. ‘Say something,’ she mumbled.

‘You know, that would have been much less erotic if I’d actually found a tick.’

Catra breathed easier. That was love, she thought: knowing when to tease and when to listen. Being with someone and knowing you were on firm footing, always—that was love. ‘I’m still not convinced they exist. Seemed like a risk worth taking.’ She licked her lips. ‘Erotic.’ The word sat heavy on her tongue. ‘Was that okay?’

Until they moved even lower, Catra had almost forgotten Adora’s hands were still on the small of her back. ‘It was the most okay thing I’ve ever done.’

There wasn’t much difference in their heights, not when Adora was Adora. It made it easy to lose herself in the contours of Adora’s face. It made it easy, when Adora tilted her head, to kiss her.

For a moment Catra wondered what had happened to all her other memories of kissing Adora. It was too easy, surely, to be the first time. Then Adora’s hand was cupping her cheek and she lost herself in making sure _this_ memory would never fade, not the softness of Adora’s lips nor the small, pleased sounds she made, not the sensation of Adora’s tongue running over her incisors nor the way Adora’s hands roamed all over her body as she kissed her.

Afterwards she leaned her head on Adora’s shoulder and listened to the sound of Adora's breathing, ever so slightly uneven.

‘What are you thinking?’ Adora said eventually.

Catra’s eyes flickered open. ‘I’m thinking I should thank Glimmer next time I see her.’

Adora hummed agreement. ‘You and me both.’

‘And I’m wondering whether it’s possible you went out for a walk in the Whispering Woods earlier. Without telling anyone. And then forgot about it.’

‘Not that I can recall,’ Adora said seriously, ‘but you can never be too careful.’

‘That’s right,’ Catra said, already reaching for the hem of Adora’s shirt, ‘and I hear ticks can be a real hazard this time of year. But don’t worry. I know what to do about that.’

Adora made no move to stop her. ‘Oh yeah?’

Catra’s teeth grazed the shell of Adora’s ear as she leaned in. ‘Yeah,’ she breathed. ‘And you better believe I’m going to do it properly.’

**Author's Note:**

> I'm paranoid about ticks, ok, I needed an outlet :(
> 
> anyway. for once I have no further thoughts. please share your thoughts, instead, so the fic won't be too lonely, in kudos or comment form! I always love comments, no matter how long or short <3


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